Jim McPartland

I like the Travel Channel and Discovery. Andrew Zimmern quaffing roasted rodent testicles and Man vs. Wild chomping live lizards has a demented appeal for me. I wouldn’t eat the shit, but have a respect for those that do.

The downsides to the shows are the commercials. 80% of which feature Billy Mays hawking something for $19.95 (plus shipping and ‘handling’) that vary from car scratch cures to gardening tools to mending clothes. I can’t count how many different things he’s pushing right now. Are there no other corporate speakers left? Where the fuck is Tony Robbins? Even Ron Popeil would be a relief.

None of this shit works. And they’re always willing to give you twice as much as they first offer PLUS some throw in item. “Just pay a separate processing fee”. That fee is $10- which you don’t get back if you decide your order was a horrible mistake and you want out. YOU pay the postage back.

I’ve always thought a great money making scheme (not Madoff great; small don’t-want-to-take-down-any-non-profits great) would be to put water with a small amount of green food dye in a bottle and sell it as a cure for something/anything- ‘Miricure’- the customer decides what it fixes- from herpes to flat tires. Weight loss to bugs on tomatoes.

.The worse that happens is 30% sent it back and I get their $10 shipping fee. Small fortune, here we come. I bet 50% would claim it does work and maybe a Nobel Prize lay in wait.

“I’m spraying this right in your fucking eyes if you don’t order Miricure NOW!”

If I see this Winnie the Pooh look alike one more time, I’m throwing my Oxyclean through the screen. His high pitched screams of ‘buy my stuff- its great’ gnaws on my nervous system worse than electro shock therapy. I’ve been woken from a TV induced sleep, thinking a Jerry Springer rerun is on- but, no- its ol’ Billy boy.

If Billy can sell all this useless shit to America, why can’t he convince Hamas and the Israelis that there’s a solution to their endless war? Offer them that money back guarantee and encourage a cease fire ‘before midnight tonight’. Just blaring his voice over loudspeakers should be enough to clear the strip until cooler heads prevail.